Many mid-sized cities won’t win the future because they are stuck on a suburban growth model. It will take 180-degree policy reversals to halt unsustainable growth. This argument is more relevant than ever, for cities that will heed it: https://www.macleans.ca/economy/torontos-unaffordable-why-cant-halifax-or-saskatoon-take-advantage/

A risk for mid-sized cities is that that do not plan for or achieve densities to make transit a viable choice from everywhere to everywhere, or to make communities walkable. A flurry of growth as a result of Covid could reinforce, rather than upend, unsustainable growth.

Cities require what land economists call “economies of agglomeration” to survive. Reaped from urban density, which spreads fixed costs over more homes and businesses, economies of agglomeration lower the per-unit cost of developing park space, infrastructure and transit.

In creating its new municipal plan, London, Ont., found that, over a 50-year period, sprawling growth would require $2.7 billion more in capital costs & $1.7 billion more in operating costs than a compact scenario. London is only 410,000 people. Not a viable approach!

For this reason I often have little patience for municipalities with their hand out to other levels of gov't, often crying foul, while at the same time primarily advancing this unsustainable growth model. How we use land matters to the financial viability of cities.

Federal infrastructure spending should be a reward to municipalities that demonstrate they are fiscally responsible by shifting land use patterns. The best way to do this? No new sprawl. Infill urban cores & suburbs. That's the responsible use of land in a climate crisis.

To show how far we need to go, 75% of new housing development in Canada over the past decade has been in auto-oriented suburban sprawl. Financially unsustainable. Environmentally unsustainable. If we are serious about the climate crisis, we would fix this. It's a policy choice.